Here’s an interesting idea for dampening insurgent violence in Iraq: Pay the would-be troublemakers to temporarily join America’s side and watch the surge success reports roll in. That’s the tactic the U.S. military has employed with some 70,000 former insurgents, according to this NPR report.

The media may be falling under the sway of Barack Obama, but Hillary Clinton is fed up with the idea that his campaign is somehow historic, and she’s had more than enough of those comparisons to JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. just “because they gave great speeches.”

How will we know if the war on drugs is ever won? When all the kingpins are locked up or dead? That was once the prevailing idea among those on the front lines of the much-ballyhooed “war,” which Rolling Stone scribe Ben Wallace notes has now gone on for over three decades and, in his view, is an utter failure.

Barack Obama’s determination to unite Americans and his strong electoral showing in Iowa, fueled in no small part by independents, have taken the wind out of Michael Bloomberg’s sails. The New York mayor has been, by some accounts, considering an independent run for president, but now there just doesn’t seem to be much of a point.

A tentative peace may have come to Kenya after the political opposition canceled its rallies and after there were reports that the head of the African Union would attempt to broker a truce. Rioting and other violence since elections last week have killed hundreds.

The carrier group sent to the Persian Gulf to intimidate and irritate Iran apparently struck a nerve. The U.S. Navy says that five suspected Iranian ships came within “close proximity” of one of a group of three American vessels. The ships turned around and no shots were fired, according to a Navy official and news reports.

Two new polls show Barack Obama building on his Iowa win with a double digit lead in New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has personally seized the reins of her campaign, determined to push the talking point she debuted at Saturday’s debate—that she can deliver on Obama’s promise of change.

One-time presidential candidate and former Sen. George McGovern penned a bombshell of an Op-Ed piece in Sunday’s Washington Post, asserting that the case for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney “is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election.”

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich won’t accept his exclusion from ABC’s debates on Saturday without a fight. Kucinich filed a complaint with the FCC Friday, claiming ABC is denying him equal time and noting that parent company Disney has made campaign contributions to the four invited Democrats.

Acknowledging a setback in her campaign following Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa, Sen. Hillary Clinton switched gears in New Hampshire, reasserting her readiness for office and urging voters to take a close look at Obama’s policies before embracing his message of hope.